


time, curious time

by clairefraser



Category: Outlander (TV) RPF
Genre: F/M, Introspection, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27588755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clairefraser/pseuds/clairefraser
Summary: In the end, the real end—They never did say goodbye.
Relationships: Caitriona Balfe/Sam Heughan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	time, curious time

**Author's Note:**

> The author is most certainly beginning to lose their damn mind.

In the end, the  _ real end _ _—_

They never did say goodbye. 

There was everything, and then it slowly turned to nothing.

It didn't end in a bang.

They faded, like the last embers in a dying fire.

For most of the world, the show they'd committed over a decade of their lives was slowly forgotten, tucked away on a shelf, left to collect dust. 

A faraway memory in faraway Scotland, quickly eclipsed as time continued to pass, as new opportunities arose, new horizons visible in the distance.

In the beginning, they were a thousand drops of rain, careening down a foggy window, merging into a single stream. And when things came to that inevitable end, they were a river, branching off to follow their own paths, with only the slightest of hope that they should meet again. 

She thinks about it often, her days and nights in rainy Scotland. She thinks about the misty mountains, the air so cold it burned her lungs and singed her skin. She thinks about the barrier she'd built around her heart, stone by stone, and the man who'd knocked it down in one go.

He's a stranger to her now, just someone from her past. They've brushed elbows at events, traded hellos and the occasional acknowledgement on social media, but it's not the same. She'd be lying to herself if she continued to pretend so. 

_ Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— _

_ I… _

_ I followed my fucking head instead of my heart. _

That's what her mind is these days, fragmented poetry, broken pieces forced to fit together, as she'd forced herself to choose normalcy, to feel  _ secure. _

And now…

She has  _ nothing. _

A flourishing career and the brightest future within her grasp, but once the curtains are drawn and she falls into the abyss of her own mind, she remembers what she has lost. Away from the cameras, she holes up in the apartment that had been her home for the longest time, and allows herself to fall back in time.

They were happy she thinks, in the beginning.

When all was new.

When she belonged to no one but herself.

And then things changed. 

She turned her back on him

He turned his back on her.

The connection between them never wavered _ — _

An invisible string, tying them together.

They'd both held on and continued to take steps backwards, learning that the end of the string was never quite in reach. They'd always be bound in a way, but  _ now _ ;

They're on opposite sides of the cosmos.

She'd dug her own grave, all those years ago.

And  _ now, _ she must lie in it.

And here in the darkness, she dreams. 

Perhaps of standing stones, to take her back to the very start.

To that moment they were strangers, stormy seas in their eyes like clashing tides.

To when he first touched her, rough pads of his fingers against her unblemished skin.

To when she'd known, that her very existence on this earth would never be the same.

  
  



End file.
